


the grand secret.

by scoundrelhan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cancer Arc, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoundrelhan/pseuds/scoundrelhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t smile this time. She had, before. He remembers that: her white teeth, the white gown, the white walls, and her cheeks - less full, less pink, but still warm - in the hospital room. This time, she doesn’t smile, but she grabs onto his coat sleeve, holds on even after he loses count of the rain-slick miles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the grand secret.

She calls him first. She tells herself that it's because it's early and he's the only one who will be awake to listen to her voice laced with beeping pagers and ambulance sirens. She says, _Mulder, it's me_. He says, _I_ _'ll be there soon_. Somehow, that's what finally makes her press a hand to her mouth and fall into the waiting room chair.

  
He hands her flowers, too much color for a hospital, and lies about stealing them as if it will make the gesture any less overwhelming. As if it will stop her fingers from trembling when she accepts them. This is not how it is supposed to go. She was supposed to say, _It's over_. And he was going to say,  _Good bye_. Instead, he says, _We'll find a way_ , and she wants to say, _Y_ _ou shouldn't put so much faith in something that can break_.

  
Later, they're standing in a hallway, saying everything except what they should be. She tells him, _I'm_ _dying, and nothing can change that_ , but she means to be selfish, means to say, _Pl_ _ease keep looking, please don't let me fade_. He grasps her arm like she's going to shatter, rubs a thumb against the permanent bruise inside her elbow, and says, _I_ _can’t believe that_. The way he's looking at her now is too much, too heavy for her glass bones. She almost says, _T_ _ell me why you won't leave._   _J_ _ust tell me what_ _I already know_. But he places his hands on her cheeks like a blessing and his lips touch her forehead like a baptism, like he could wash away the sickness with sheer, stubborn will. She holds her breath for the miracle, but when she looks into his sad, sad eyes, she is still weary and he is still looking at her like he could save both of them for the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

  
She wears the cross around her neck, but it's a lie. She hasn't been to church in over a decade. Her mother tells her it will help, but she knows it won't. Miracles don't happen. She waited for one in that hallway, but it didn't happen. 

 

* * *

 

 _I_ _’m going to die_ , she reminds him, like the elephant in the backseat hasn’t been there since they exchanged X-rays and grocery store flowers.

  
_No_ , he says, a reflex. _You're_ _not, Scully_.

  
She doesn’t smile this time. She had, before. He remembers that: her white teeth, the white gown, the white walls, and her cheeks - less full, less pink, but still warm - in the hospital room. This time, she doesn’t smile, but she grabs onto his coat sleeve, holds on even after he loses count of the rain-slick miles.

  
He can’t tell her what he wants to, so he murmurs all those secret words into his late night coffee. It's easier this way, he thinks. It's easier if she doesn’t know. But she has to. She has to know, because she somehow invariably does. He finds reasons to linger in her motel room, reasons to knock on her door at three a.m. that don’t translate to _I need to know you're okay_. She never turns him away, only raises an eyebrow and steps aside as he rambles about details they missed and where they should eat for breakfast in the morning.

 

* * *

 

She’s been feeling quite dangerous these days. 

  
When she had to make a third midnight run in a week to Walgreen’s for tissues, she nearly kept on driving until she found herself at his doorstep. He would have opened the door with that gentle, insomniac smile, and he would have asked her if everything was okay, and she would have done something crazy. She didn’t, though. She didn’t, but she almost did. The almost is what scares her. She tries to lose herself in autopsies, and case files, tries not to focus too much on how he’s always in the corner of her eye like something just out of reach.

  
The day he hands her a Kleenex without a word as they examine the corpse of some poor young girl with red hair like hers, too much like hers, is when she nearly loses everything. She excuses herself, fights the adrenaline in her veins telling her to run out the front door and into the chilled winter morning. The officer outside the bedroom asks her if she needs anything, pretends like he’s not staring at her bloody nostrils. She crumples the tissue in her hand, and suddenly, he’s there, a column of black and anxious eyes at her side.

  
_Are you alright?_   He asks. There’s a joke in there somewhere, she’s sure of it. They haven't laughed in months.

 

 _Of course_ , she says, bites the inside of her cheek to keep back the unwelcome tears. Mom used to say she was the strong one.

 

* * *

  
  
_I’m afraid_ , he murmurs into her cold palm. She’s asleep, won’t remember that he was even there to see her, but he’s at the end of his sanity.

  
_I'm afraid this is it_ , he says, too loud in the too small room.

  
She stirs, a slight hitch of breath, and her eyes flutter enough that he hopes she’ll catch him, open her eyes and ask him what he’s doing here, why he isn’t at home resting. She doesn't. Her head turns towards him, her breath evens out, and that's that. He’s gentle with her wrist, remembering all too well grabbing it and watching the purple spread like a blooming flower beneath his gloved fingers. 

_I used to think we were untouchable_ , he tells her veins, too blue and too prominent, as he presses a soft kiss to her thumb. _Nothing ever stopped us, not really. We always made it back to each other, you know? But now… I’m afraid_.

  
He is still afraid when he leaves her around dawn with the sunlight illuminating her porcelain skin, but more so, he’s just tired. He’s tired in the way only worry makes one tired, and he’s angry because everyone’s already mourning her when moments ago he was keeping track of the hummingbird flutter of her pulse.

  
He thinks he’ll be ready when The Call comes. It’s become capital, like a holiday, something that’s inevitable and always comes too soon.

  
It’s all a game now. A fight that he can’t tap out of. He hears the monitors flatlining in the few dreams he has. He lies on the couch, and keeps one finger on the phone. He’s imagined the exchange so many times. Maybe it will be her mother, sobbing, trying to tell him that it’s over. Maybe it’ll be her brother, screaming that it’s his fault, it’s all his fault, that he’s a selfish son of a bitch for dragging her into this. The kinder version is the doctor: their voice careful and sympathetic, informing him of the time it happened and that it was peaceful, quick. A single breath, and it was done.

  
Most of the time, he sneaks in after visiting hours, and sits by her bedside, and hopes that it’ll happen when he’s there. He’ll hold her sleep-limp hands and count the seconds between her breaths, watch her chest rise and fall beneath the sheets like an ocean tide.

  
_Mulder, you should be sleeping_ , she says, bruised eyes still closed.

  
_Do you believe in time travel?_   He asks, deflecting, skirting around a direct answer like usual, and he knows she knows what he means.

  
He wants it all back. Every goddamn second. He can take reliving all the pain and disappointment, all the frustration and cover-ups and close calls, if it means seeing her back on her feet, matching him step for step in more ways than he could ever imagine, than he could have ever hoped.

 

* * *

 

She had been awake when he came that night. She never told him, but she was. She didn't want to ruin the grand secret. The secret they've both known since the beginning but never revealed. 

  
His tears had been a relief, his sobs blanketing her in a grief she was too afraid to let herself feel. She hadn't wanted to disturb him. He had looked like a child playing a man, a child too small and scared to look into the face of reality, holding onto her hand for dear life. She wanted to be strong again, for herself and for him, wanted to be able look him in the eye and tell him, _You will survive this. You will move on_. But she was afraid he'd look up and tell her, _You're the only thing keeping me here_.

  
It feels like she's come full circle. She doesn't remember her last trip to the hospital after those nameless, faceless men let her go, but she will remember this: lying in a white bed in a white room in a white gown, feeling the phantom weight of his hands over hers and his lips on her cheek, her forehead, her fingers. Melissa told her he had been a time bomb all those years ago, left her side because he had needed to do something, felt like he owed her more than simply staying.

  
When he comes to see her after her morning treatment, she lets him hold her hands again, lets him smile and joke about the future. He keeps doing that, telling her about all the cases they still have to look into, all the places they still need to go.

  
_The future_ , he says, _you and me, Scully_.

  
_You and me_ , she thinks, and the tears are there, ready for one more crack in the dam. He kisses her cheek, and lingers. She feels his breath like a heartbeat, short and nervous, and she knows the secret is written all over her face. It's all over his, too, but it's much too big, much too big for her and for him. They weren't made to keep a secret like this.

  
_I'm going to save you_ , he says, and keeps saying. A broken record of convictions and blind hope.

  
_I know_ , she smiles, and the tears comes easy now.

  
A secret isn’t a secret once two people know it, but she’ll still take those three words to her grave.


End file.
